


Digitalis

by sallysorrell



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: A Stitch in Time - Andrew Robinson, Gen, M/M, Past Torture, Post-Canon Cardassia, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-28 00:58:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10820391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sallysorrell/pseuds/sallysorrell
Summary: A piece for an exchange with Kelimian who asked for "something that focuses specifically on garak and parmak’s relationship... and how they’ve addressed past hurts."They've met before under similar circumstances, but this time they might be more inclined to talk to each other.





	Digitalis

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cancennau](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cancennau/gifts).



Parmak set his case down as soon as he arrived in Garak’s home, as if he’d lived there for years.  They had arranged to take a walk together. 

“Elim?” he called.

He found Garak alone in the sitting room, and moved his case there, setting it down along with a sigh before moving to the kitchen.  Garak had only been given one day off from work, and Parmak was distressed to find his recommendation had done Garak more harm than good.   _What kind of doctor have I become?_ Parmak begged of himself, and he rushed to gather medication from his case.  Something to help his patient and his own image, he hoped.

“I wanted to ask you some questions,” Garak mumbled.

“A moment please, Elim,” Parmak said, because he could not hear him clearly over the retching sounds of the faucet.  

Garak shuddered; he’d said this to Parmak before.  The room then was dark and Parmak’s eyes were wet with tears.  Despite not speaking for hours - for _four hours_ \- Garak wanted nothing more than something to drink.  The memory played in his mind clearly; he hated it.

“No,” Garak decided, “I’m not going to ask you questions any more.  Just the one.” 

“Sorry?” Parmak turned his head over his shoulder, and set the glass he was filling with water down in the middle of the basin.

Even after their relatively short association, Parmak knew to expect this sort of mumbling from his companion.  The man never slept and was, like the rest of the planet, constantly malnourished, and often suffered from hallucinations as a result.  Parmak did his best to exist inside and outside of these visions, offering a steady hand to pull Garak out of them.  

Garak was watching him, now, as he tore open a packet printed with the Cardassian asklepian, and tipped the powder into the cup of water.  It was disguised well by the coating of dirt which settled at the base.

He picked up the glass and stirred it, still beneath cover of the sink walls, before turning and offering it to Garak.

“The one question,” Garak repeated. “Are you going to poison me?”

Parmak set the glass down on the cushion beside the one Garak was currently sprawled over.  He pressed his hand against the soft flesh at the front of Garak’s neck, to confirm the severity of his fever.

“I am not,” Parmak assured.  “Please drink this.”

The doctor struggled constantly with this guilt, with the idea that their mistrust rightfully ran both ways.  When he offered his hand to Garak at the Med Center, stamping his seal to approve Garak’s application for work, he expected it would dissolve.  Like the powder, not the dirt, with their mutually rewarding work as the water.

“I don’t think I would mind,” Garak continued, purposely looking away from Parmak, “it could be made to taste like nothing at all, of course, but I think I would prefer it to be sweet, if it has to happen.”

“I am not going to poison you.”

Parmak returned to the desolate kitchen, and dug through the cabinets for _inda nectar_ , something he expected to find only in the most affluent households in the district.  The bottle was stored with the seasonings as he predicted - Garak was one of his more predictable patients, really - so he took it and opened it and brought it to Garak for approval.

“Though you may sweeten it,” he continued.  

Garak curled his fingers tightly around the neck of the bottle and laughed.

“You were going to, though.  You _were_ , you must’ve been,” he measured several drops into his drink, but did not taste it. “I would not have been sent after the wrong man.”

Parmak approached him, cautious and quiet, weighing the words to say next.

“It is water and powdered niacin,” Parmak concluded, “and dirt.”

“And _inda_.  Would you like some, Doctor?”

Parmak sighed and pressed his mouth to the glass, compromising with Garak’s gradually relieved expression on the amount he should drink.  It was one full ration, on purpose, and now it was ruined; Garak was not satisfied with the experiment until the volume was reduced by more than half.  

Parmak’s lips resisted being pulled away, and made a wet _click_ sound as he swallowed.

“You will drink this,” he said. “The rest of it.  It’ll clear your head.”

“I am perfectly sane.”

Parmak waited until he was back in the kitchen to mutter ‘sure you are, Elim.’  He returned the bottle of nectar to its home cabinet, and sorted through the rest of Garak’s remaining provisions.

“What is more sane than taking precautions?”

“Precautions?” Parmak pleaded with the sink for more water, so he could revise Garak’s prescription, but none came.

“Mmmhmm,” said Garak, as he sipped from the glass.

“A moment ago you were insisting I _should_ poison you, and I can’t say I’m convinced you wouldn’t’ve said the exact same on Tain’s behalf.”

Garak had trouble digesting the words without water.  He sipped some more.  It was all he had left, now, words and water.  And Parmak’s annoying insistence on providing both.  The man was better suited to board games and silent morning walks, Garak thought - events where they did not need to look at each other.

All he could see, at this time, was Parmak’s face right in front of him, eyes focused intensely on his own.  Garak did not know if this was a vision or reality, but he held the same tolerance for both.

“I’d never expect you to apologize to _me_ ,” Garak eventually replied.  “How could I, when I was the one in the way of your work?”

“Sorry?”

“I was not thinking clearly then,” Garak admitted.  He turned his head to confirm the kitchen was empty, but was not entirely convinced this was Parmak before him, “Will you touch me?”

“Will I… touch you?”

“Yes, will you?  My skin again, please, if you don’t mind.”

Garak extended one hand (the other was still suffocating the glass) and stared forward until Parmak obliged.  It was not a reliable test if Garak initiated contact; he learned this after supposedly sharing lunch in his home with Doctor Bashir, whose arm he did not let go of until Parmak arrived - hours later and by accident - to wake him.

Parmak took hold of Garak’s arm, and knelt so they were more or less aligned.  At this, Garak managed to take a steady breath.

“If you had been working against Tain, I was the last step in stopping you.”

“I was not working against him,” Parmak insisted.

“You were, you were.  I would not have been--”

“--assigned to the wrong man, yes.  I think that all the time, when I look at your name on my duty roster.”

Garak set down the glass, just so he could pat Parmak’s hand down tighter over his forearm.  He leaned down, threatening to press their foreheads together.

“In any case, if I hadn’t stopped you…”

Their ridges met.

Parmak dug his nails into Garak’s arm to recall his attention.  He was silently lost somewhere in the thought.

“Sorry,” they both said, voices overlapping.

Parmak rolled Garak’s sleeve down and rubbed his hand in circles over the new injury he’d caused.  Garak smiled, delighted, enjoying the residual pain as much as the resulting attention. He would freely admit he had a troubled relationship with, well, every part of himself, but the question never came up; situations were usually too uncomfortable to sustain it, and Garak liked his opponents best when they underestimated him.

Clearly, Parmak was not his opponent, but his supporter.  He cut through this strategy more easily than his nails did through Garak’s ancient, ill-fitting, and randomly-assigned medical scrubs.

“Are you more interested in getting an apology from me, Elim, or from yourself?”

“I think of it constantly,” Garak admitted.  “Every time I see you I think of it, and I see you more and more…”

“If distance would help you, I will--”

“No, no.  I’ve a long history of poisoning myself.”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow you, Elim.  That half-dose isn’t doing you any good at all.”

Parmak reached across to the table where his case was, hoping to find something else inside that could help.  As if the contents would be different every time he opened it.  No, they were all past their expiration dates and had cost him more than he thought medicine should ever be sold for.  He shook his head at the recollection, and read the ingredients of another packet.

“I would like you to stay,” Garak said, as he did this.

All Parmak had left was self-reconstituting plaster.  He sighed, but opened one and wet it over his tongue and pressed it to Garak’s arm, sliding his hand tight beneath Garak’s sleeve.  The plaster stiffened into a square graph of gauze, which Garak felt the need to smile at.

“I will stay,” Parmak decided. “I will do whatever benefits you.  Now, finish your water.”

Garak did as he was told.  He needed constant direction, nowadays; he hated to be alone because he gave himself such awful advice.

“You’re a much better doctor - and companion - than I deserve,” Garak replied.  

Parmak turned to study his face, but looked away the moment Garak’s eyes caught his.  Neither of them apologized this time.  It was, by Cardassian standards, a definite step forward.

“I may have been assigned to the wrong man, then,” Garak said.  

It was torturous, trying to return himself to the customary practice of reliving all his memories at once.  He wanted to make sure his meaning was clear, but he had not been alone among Cardassians in decades, and Parmak was not an ideal candidate for study - he was the strangest man Garak ever heard of.  Garak coughed and tried again, as Parmak’s hand settled over his chest to steady his breathing.

“ _Then_ ,” Garak emphasized. “I think I’ve found the right one, now.”

 He wondered what hostility he had imagined in Parmak’s face, all those years ago.  There was none left, and no evidence of any ever existing.  It was as if he scoured the soil, and could not even find seeds.  

“You admitted to something you never intended to do,” Garak went on. “I… I _made_ you do that.”

Parmak made a tutting sound with his tongue.

“ _Elim_.  Don’t think about it; I don’t.  Drop the memory.”

“Just… _drop_ it?” Garak confirmed, in disbelief. “It’s in my eyes and _your_ hands and the case you’re carrying, and--”

“You must understand - this planet will make _no_ progress with the past as its only inspiration.  Do you want to help?”

Garak looked longingly at the glass, and felt the absence of half his medication as the rest settled helplessly in his stomach.  He made a vaguely affirmative sound.  

“So do I,” said Parmak, with a nod of his head.

“I have,” Garak struggled, “no doubt of that.”

“So you will drop it,” Parmak instructed.

“Yes, I will try to.  Would you… just for now, would you kindly let go of me?”

Parmak slid his hands free of Garak’s body and shut his case of hyperinflated medications.  He still couldn’t believe what he’d paid for them - all his physical savings and desperate promises of digital credits when the electricity would cooperate again - and he hadn’t even seen the contents of the case prior to the auction.  He only knew he needed to have it; it would only be safe and properly used in his hands.  Now it bore his name and his address, and he carried it with him everywhere, always foolishly hoping he would have a chance to add to it instead of empty it.

It was a lot like Elim Garak.

“I think that’s been long enough,” Garak reached for Parmak’s retreating fingers and curled them in his hand.

“Yes, I think so,” Parmak said, picking up the memory he’d just ordered Garak to drop.

“Do you forgive me?” ventured Garak, along the same line.

“Mmm, I do, yes.  And do you forgive yourself?”

Garak hardly had the strength to shake his head.

“Not long enough for that, I’m afraid.”

“Well, I’m not going anywhere.”


End file.
